30.11.2010

Unfortunately I got this lantern ready so late that I needed to run out so I didn't get the chance to blog it for last weeks P*skarteluhaaste which was all about plaids. I'm not satisfied with this, I was just in too much of a hurry. But it's got green and red plaids and a Christmas Fairy by Sketching Stamper.

A friend of mine was here yesterday to make Christmas cards. She mentioned she wanted something shaped like a shoe for her fathers card. As she worked on her other cards I started to plan a shoe. At some point she realised what I was doing.

This cardstock shoe sure wouldn't fit a grown man and it came out more feminine than I meant it to but all in all I'm quite satisfied with it, being the ex tempore project that it was.

I used cardstock, tapestry, eyelets, bronze sparkle gel pen and some ribbon in it. Everything is put together with double sided tape and I really hope it'll hold.

I'm quite pleased with my patterns excluding toe part. It should be rounder but I don't know if cardstock even shapes that way. If someone wants to try this project I can scan the pattern.

Another thing I made while she was working was this not so christmasy Christmas card. I printed out a verse of a carol for it. Freely translated it says "On the sky a star just lighted, star so bright, star so big..." which I think suits this little digi alien by Pollycraft better than well.

25.11.2010

Koukussa Kortteihin had a Christmas challenge to create a matching card and some kind of package. I decorated an empty chocolate box and made a tag to go with it. First I was thinking of silver and white but at some point it turned quite blue.

Step one was to cover the whole box with thick office paper. Regular 80g/m^3 was a bit too see-trough so I used 120g/m^3. Next I sponged the whole thing with Weathered Wood Distress Ink.

I had a bit too much fun with the flowers. First I cut acrylic flowers with Sizzix Tattered Florals die. Then I ran them trough Big Shot again with embossing plate and cut the ends of bigger ones petals with X-cut edge punch. Next I rubbed some silver acrylic paint with my finger to the bigger piece and stamped smaller ones with the same paint. I was using Game Color paint in Chainmail Silver.

Again using the same die I cut two layers of vellum and added some dotting on petal tips with silver gel pen. I snipped petals on the acrylic layers a bit deeper before folding them and putting flowers together with Glossy Accent.

I'm a bit dissapointed that I didn't buy more of those metal stars used all over this project. I only got one or two left after using them here as flower centers, snowflakes and pendant. I also need to buy more clear gems.

"H" and "J" pins marking Hyvää Joulua (Merry Christmas) are made following a tutorial I saw a while ago for Tim Holz memo pins. I just can't remember where it was. Anyways, I didn't have memo pins so I just made some myself of metal wire. I stamped letters on white cardstock, embossed them with a mixture of black and silver embossing powder and punched them out. Then I put the pins on the circles and filled them with Glossy Accent.

I printed the picture and text out on Canson Illustration. Picture can be found here. I cropped it a bit and put it trough blue Photoshop filter before printing.

Inside is a pocket for tag. I used Marianne Design die for all swirls in this project. I cut them of silver cardstock and used the same cardstock as a base for tag.

Tag has same kind of flower than the box. I added some white feathers because text speaks about touch of an angel wing. A few ribbons, some baby blue fiber and a Fiskars border stamp finished the tag.

And then something completely different: some Fimo cupcake charms. I thought I'd add these as little surprises to friends Christmas presents.

22.11.2010

As soon as I saw a tutorial for a folded card this morning I had an urge to try it. It just wasn't as simple as I imagined. First problem was that I don't have any around-the-card -punches. So I tried and tried and tried ways to make a decent corner with my existing punches. Second problem was the folding itself. It was surprisingly hard to get all the edges straight. At the end I think I tried seven times before I got it right.

I'm not sure if I'm going to do another one in the near future but if someone else wants to try, I'll give one hint. If you have the same X-cut edge punch I used, use 22 cm*22 cm or 26c m*26 cm cardstock and start punching always from the middle of a side. That's how you get quite neat corners by trimming them just a bit with scissors. I used the smaller size for this one.

I used Distress Ink in Antique Linen to go around all the edges and folds. Everything else is stamped with Encore Ultimate Metallic ink in gold. I'm happy my mystery stamp bag held so much all kinds of decorative swirls and corners. I used some swirls for the balls and corners for triangles in the inside. I build the Christmas tree with different sizes of corner stamps, have been meaned to try it since I saw a tip in Tiimari magazine. One text from weekends fair also got out of its bag, it says "On jouluilta" (It's Christmas Night) in one of the bigger green areas under a corner stamp. All papers are by Papermania.

This card is my entry for this weeks P*skarteluhaaste -challenge which was to use maximum of 4 embellishments.

21.11.2010

It seems that I've grown temporarily bored of Christmas this week. First I went all fan-girly with Koukussa Kortteihin K-18 (NC-17) -challenge which was all about dead stars. I made a tri-shutter card starring Heath Ledger.

I used a lot of digi elements in this one: The film strip used is a Photoshop brush by Jelena Jovovic. Papers are from Song n Dance -digi paper pack. I resised them to fit A4 paper. Butterflies are also created with a Photoshop brush, Wing Set by Becs-Stock. Finally, quote was set to a Fun Doodle Tag by Pixels & Icecream which I purchased quite a long time ago from MyGrafico. Unfortunately set isn't sold anymore.

Next is a perfect example how things just don't always "click". I needed to do a quick tealight card for a friend. I bought a cute little fairy tree house from Make 'It' Crafty. First I colored it with ProMarkers but it ended up being somewhat dark or muddy. I tried again with Distress Inks and this time the result was a bit better. I chose some nice flowers to go with it, added some goose biots and pearl string... still the result is somehow flat. Maybe the elements are set too low on the blank or something. It's still my participation on this weeks Flutter By Wednesday "everything goes".

I made some nice findings from craft fair this weekend. Taitokierre was selling all their beads in ridiculous prices as they're shutting down their import busines. I bought some clock faces, metal parts and cute little Swarovski butterflies. I also got a new X-cut border punch from Skräpteekki and a nice die set by Marianne Design from Angela Production.

9.11.2010

Our apartment smells a bit funny at the moment. I've been buying different colors of scented tea light candles for cards. Different color just tends to mean different scent as well and as much I love scented candles the mixture is always as pleasant.

I made my first smaller candle cards a few days ago. I have to admit they're quite nice as well and a lot faster to make than the bigger ones as the box part is simpler.

Christmascards are inevitable at this time of a year. If you're getting bored already, I would recommend to return in January. My take at this weeks Sketch Saturday is the first angel of the year.

The lovely picture is a digi stamp by Chrissy Amstrong and it can be purchased from Whimsy Stamps. I colored it with ProMarkers and used Nellies Multiframe -die to cut the oval. Papers I used are both from Cosmo Cricket Mitten Weather -stack.

Another digi from Chrissy ended up on a Christmas giveaway participation card. I love these little fellows. There's another picture with the same characters available as well.

The challenge in this one was to use ribbon, button, blue, red, green and white. As I often use hues of one or two different colors putting four colors on the same card and using them even remotely equally was surprisingly hard.

2.11.2010

Just when I was thinking of card to make for last weeks Sketch Saturday my husband came home with this Cornish Heritage Farm snowman. I added some color with ProMarkers and glitter and put it on some KARS Christmas collection papers. Quite traditional both in color combination and theme.

These little bears were stamped in a craft meeting and I think I have to get that stamp to myself. I colored both of them with Distress Inks. Purple one also has some lilac Perfect Pearls in the backround.

I tried out my new Marianne Design pointsettia die. I didn't emboss the flower itself but folded the petals simply in half to create more of a 3D-look. I rubbed some Liquid Pearls on the petals and added a bead of it in the center.

This glimmery shimmery snowlady is done by cutting circles with Sizzix Bigz Circles #2 -die and embossing them with Sizzix plates. Hat it about a half of a middle sized circle and handcut rim. Backround papers are from Cosmo Cricket Mitten weather -stack. There's Stickles, Glimmer mist, half pearls, pearlstring... All it's missing is some bling.

I had to get these alien/teletubby Panduro elves as soon as I saw them. I've stamped two of them on the same picture and added Aladine decorative ball in the middle. These guys are so stinking cute!

This weeks challenge at P*skarteluhaaste was to create something that wasn't a card. We had a Halloween masquerade on Saturday and I needed some accessories for my vampire costume. I ended up embellishing a venetian mask and making a bottlecap necklase and a brooch to go with it.

For some reason the brooch ended up upside down on the picture. It's just some paper leaves, a tiny metal rose, some hot fix Preciosa chrystals and a piece of feater. Mask has mainly same embellishment, chrystals, those little roses and a velvet lollipop flowers with some beads on the center. I also attached a few watch springs behind the flower with feathers. I love the curly watch springs, they're fun to use in this kind of projects.

Bottlecap necklace has a cap I ran trough my Big Shot. Love Bites -stamp was one of my mystery stamps. I cut a 1" circle, sponged it first troughout with Barndoor Red Distress Ink and edged it with black. I added a chrystal there too before I filled the cap with Glossy Accent.

1. You may use my digi stamps in your art as long as they're hand colored.2. You can resize, twist and mirror them.3. You may sell the cards you've created.4. If you publish an image of your creation in your blog or some photostream I'd love to see it so share the link with me!